Some friends came to visit yesterday with their small child of similar specification to ours with the intention of going out for a nice country stroll and the usual wasp inflicted snacks. Not what I had planned! So, while the girls disappeared I subjected my long suffering pal Al (at least it wasn't the garage roof this time!), to what turned out to be a four hour session of getting the fiddle yard to work properly. I have to admit that I have rather ignored this task when I have erected the layout I have missed this board off as it has to stick out of the door and if you do attach it you can't slide it due to aforementioned door. Was sensible for once and just erected the two end boards but it soon became apparent that all was not well. I am sure that it worked better than this when I built it but with a bit of timber warping and so on nothing seemed to line up at all.

Much head scratching, dismantling, packing, strengthening and cursing ensued but got there in the end. The real break through came when I developed my new vertical track alignment and fixing tool

Yes I know it is just a lump of BluTack but it was very useful indeed, in fact another thing that I must add to my emergency list of tools to take to the exhibition.